From North to South

Some Observations:

We have seen a whole lot of cows here and they are eating of all things…GRASS! We have not seen a feedlot. We saw a very overweight Maori who wore a t-shirt that read ‘I’m in shape. Round is a shape’. While driving on the Coromandel Peninsular we came across many one lane bridges. It is fall here but I have spied many New Zealanders aka Kiwis going barefoot. People are quite friendly here. Complete strangers will greet you on the street.

April 15, 2013

Today we drove to Rotorua, about a 3.5 hr drive south. We have our first rain since we arrived and it is a storm from the north. The scenery continues to be fantastic. We are driving through small towns and farm land. We checked into our motel that has a large bedroom with a full kitchen and a ‘hot tub’ of sorts that’s just a soaking tub. Our host said she would fill it in the evening for us. Rotorua is a geothermal area so it smells like rotten eggs before you reach town. Our hot tub will be filled with water that smells of sulfur but who cares. It will be hot!

We headed a short way out of town to visit Te Puia, a Maori owned but

government financed facility that has a carving school that accepts five students a year for a three year apprenticeship, a weaving school where items are made from the flax plant, a kiwi house and a geothermal area with geysers and boiling mud.







We had an hour long tour then headed to town to check out shops selling

carvings.  We didn’t like what we saw with one exception.  We saw a mask in a shop window and discovered it was on sale for 50% off. Unfortunately the sale price was $1,000. We went to an Italian restaurant for dinner and had a great meal. I had a pumpkin risotto with scallops and Ron had a zuppa de pesce. We went back to our room and sat in our private hot tub. It took about 40 minutes after we got home for the water to cool enough for us to get into the tub. We were asleep by 9:00.

April 16, 2013

We woke up at 6:15. We did some stretches and floor exercises, made our breakfast and turned on the TV and learned about the bombings at the Boston marathon. What a sad day.

We went to the Rotorua Museum which is housed in a 1908 bath

house. This is a beautifully restored magnificent building that has one wing devoted to the Maori history with wonderful carvings by famous carvers. There were photos, greenstone (jade) items, and canoes. Another wing gave the history of the bath house. We took an hour long tour and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. Afterwards we went through the museum shop that had authentic Maori carvings (not tourist souvenirs). We found a mask to add to our collection. It was expensive but we decided we didn’t want a mass produced item.

We grabbed a quick lunch at a Thai restaurant and headed one hour south to Singapore. The storm is still with us but the rain is not dampening our spirits. After checking into our hostel, we headed for Huka Falls, about 10 miles out of town. The Waikato River is one of NZ’s most voluminous rivers. The river funnels into a narrow chasm before dropping over a shelf that is nine meters high at the rate of 300 tons of water per second. That is enough to fill an Olympic pool in 12 seconds. 

We took a good walk down one of the trails. We came back to town and picked up some groceries then relaxed in our room before going out for another great meal.

Taupo, located on the largest lake in NZ. The lake is 616 sq kilometers and 185 meters deep. It is the size of

April 17

We headed out to Napier after visiting a small museum to see the Reid carving by the master carvers Tene Waitere. We saw a lot of sheep on the drive. There were very high hills, pine plantations, and a waterfall along the way. 

 We checdked into our art deco hostel and set out to enjoy what Napier had to

offer. In 1931 Napier was destroyed by a 7.9 earthquate that lastws two and a half minutes. What wasn’t destroyed by the quake was burned to the gorund by the ensuig fires. The town through pure determination was rebuilt in two years. The popular architecture of the day was Art Deco so this is the place to see some beautiful examples. We bought a self guide tour book and spend the rest of the day reading about and viewing some really sweet examples of Art Deco. The town is small so it was easy to do a walking tour. Of the original 164 buildings 140 remain. We visited a store specializing is possum products. Apparently possums are in abundance here and do a lot of damage to farmers’ crops. A pair of wool/possum socks was $47  so we passed up that opportunity. Napier is located right by the ocean and we could hear the crashing waves. No one swims here due to the very dangerous undertow. The beach consisted of millions of very smooth dark gray stones. We were asleep at 9:30 after a yummy dinner.

The theme also continues to signs and manhole covers:

 

April 18 

We walked along the beach on a board walk after breakfast then drove over to the National tobacco Co building, a very fine example of Art Deco architecture and detail. Across the street was a great antique store chocked full of fun things to look at.

               

We drove to Hastings, another Art Deco town and enjoyed walking around the downtown area. We continued our drive, arriving in Wellington at the very southern tip of the North Island. The drive was spectacular with very green pastures, lots of sheep and huge rolling hills.  We passed through a town settled by Danes and one by folks from Norway. We stopped in one town to use the public toilets. After I closed the door a voice instructed me how to lock the door by pushing a button and warned me I had the use of the room for 10 minutes. Then when I flushed the toilet I was told how to unlock the door. Too funny. It was a rainy day bur we stopped for a quick picnic by the roadside and finished before the rain returned. We rarely see litter here and billboards are almost not existent other than small ones that give drivers safety tips. Many small towns make use of traffic circles rather than traffic lights. This saves money for the cities and time for drivers. It is fall here so we got to see trees changing from green leaves to yellow, red, orange and rust. What a treat.

In Wellington, we stayed with some people we met when we attended a security training in Washington DC before we left to live in the Rep of Georgia. Roy works for the embassy and Debra holds down the fort with tow wonderful kids, Krishna and Dhara. Debra and I have been email buddies since our first encounter. They had invited us to visit them when they served in Sri Lanka. We stayed in their home there when they were in the US on home leave. Debra had prepared a fish curry, dahl, papadums and salad.

April 19

We took a train into town to avoid the hassle of finding parking and getting lost. When we arrived at the place to catch the train we asked a woman who was about our age which side of the platform to catch the train to Welly. We chatted for a while then boarded the train when it arrived. When we got off the train our new friend was waiting to catch us so she could take us to exit where we would easily find Parliament.

Welly is a very walkable city. We first took a tour of Parliament. Parliament consists of three very distinct buildings: a very modern stepped truncated cone that was completed in 1982 and is called the Beehive (executive offices). Next to it is the Edwardian Neoclassical Parliament House and that stands next to the Parliament Library which is Gothic Revival. We were fascinated by the earthquake retro fit whereby the building rests on rubber and steel cylinders that can flex in an earthquake. After the tours we went around the corner and ate a wonderful lunch outside at the Ministry of Food, a cute name for a café located in the heart of the government district.

We then walked to the cable car that takes us up to a view point over the city and to the botanical gardens. We stopped along the way to consult our map in order to find the cable car. A young man walked up to us and said “Is everything all right?” We said we were just trying to find the cable car. He gave us directions and continued along the way. We have been so taken by how friendly Kiwis are. We rode to the top and were treated to a wonderful view of the city and the ocean. We walked through the gardens briefly and Ron popped into the Cable Car Museum. Back down the hill we walked to the waterfront and visited Te Papa, Welly’s fabulous museum with Maori displays, and so much more. We only visited two of the six floors as we were growing tired of being on our feet all day. We walked back to the train station. We visited with Debra when we got home then we took the family out for Malaysian food. Roy is Indian and was born and raised in Singapore. He said this was as closed as we could get to Singaporean food.

After dinner we walked through a pedestrian area known as Cuba Street where there are some great older buildings. The area is a favorite of young people who dress in wonderful costumes or have cool hair colors like purple or hot pink, etc. We went back home and visited until way late.

April 20

We got up on Saturday to more rain. We decided to go to town anyway. We walked from the train station in Welly to Civic Center where we had lunch and saw a kinetic art show in a gallery near where we were to catch the bus to Zealandia, a bird sanctuary. It started raining harder and I decided I didn't

 want to stand in the rain for an hour looking for birds so we changed our plans and visited the Museum of Wellington City and Sea. This museum focused on Welly’s social and maritime history. We went back to the house and helped with dinner preparation. Again we visited then Ron and I packed for an early start the next day.

April 21

Ron and I left the house at 6:30 in order to catch the Interisland ferry to Picton on the south island. ThisPacific ocean meets the Tasman Sea in the Cook Straight.  It is a three hour crossing and we were fortunate that is was a calm although rainy day. We split a date scone with clotted cream which was divine. Apparently sometimes the crossing is rough. In 1968 there was a horrific storm and a ferry floundered and all 734 passengers and crew had to abandon ship. The seas were so rough that some lifeboats overturned. In all 51 people died due to hypothermia, drowning or injuries. The Cook Strait is where the Tasman Sea and

is where the

At Picton we treated our selves to fish and chips wrapped in

newspaper and sans sauces which I desperately wanted. None were available at this take away shop. We drove about two hours to get to our destination of Kaikoura on the coast. We passed many vineyards where the grape leaves were turning yellow and many of the trees were in their fall colors. There were high hills on our right with the sea on our left. We saw pastures that we very green and there was a small creek beside the road. We climbed up a narrow valley with some brown grass rolling hills with almost no trees. There were more vineyards and the hills on our right were extremely high. There were only a few places where we could pull off the road and one of our stops was to view a seal colony. We checked into our charming motel that consists of eight cottages. We have a kitchen and two bedrooms, a shower and toilet. We drove around the small town and went out for a seafood dinner. I had steamed green lipped mussels with a sauce that sent me into orbit. Ron dined on a seafood chowder and for dessert he had a dish that the chef’s mother had created: fig salami, walnuts with a honey drizzle and blue cheese that was so soft that it resembled whipped cream.

April 22 

Today we got up had hoped to go on a whale watching trip. The trip was cancelled as the whales had moved too far off shore so we will try tomorrow. The day ended up being a blessing as we slowed our pace. We visited the Fyffe House, a piece of whaling history and then we walked around the area where there is another seal colony. We went up on a bluff over looking the area. Back to our room we did laundry and relaxed. In addition we changed our itinerary to take in more os the southern east coast where we hope to see Penguins.